Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/24

 Este. She would not break bread under his roof. She had the old barbaric honour and resentment in her.

He went to a table where an inkstand stood, as he had signed at it a few days before the deeds that made him master of the castle and the lands of Prœstanella. He dipped a pen in the ink, then pausing, turned and looked at her.

'You are resolved to share his fate?' he said abruptly. 'You will not change in that?'

Her eyes looked at his fully and fearlessly.

'Have I not said twice, if he were but a fox I would not leave him, since he has trusted me?'

'And since he loves you!'

She was silent. She did not choose to speak of that to him.

'Such love!' said Sanctis, with an impetuosity not natural to him, and a passion of scorn for which all words were too poor and small. 'Have you never thought that it is your life you give away almost before it has begun? For you are so young: and this disgrace you take on you will last so long, so long; last till you lie